Flow of oil into the sea is stemmed as BP blasts mud deep into the leaking well

Seal: Heavy mud is being pumped into the pipeline, with a view to then shutting it completely with cement

Live feed: A TV camera shows the oil leak as BP starts the 'top kill' on the ruptured well

BP’s gamble to plug the torrent of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by pumping mud to block the leak appears to have paid off.

US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said the risky ‘top kill’ operation had succeeded in dramatically dropping the oil pressure from the leak one-mile under the ocean.

Once the oil flow is stemmed completely, engineers will begin filling the hole with cement to entomb the well.
‘We’ll get this under control,’ said Admiral Allen, the National Incident Commander, who has been put in overall charge of the operation by President Obama.

The breakthrough came as US scientists claimed the amount of oil that has flooded into the sea was up to four times more than BP estimates and has easily eclipsed the Exxon Valdez disaster to become the worst oil leak in American history.
The British-based oil giant was said to be cautiously optimistic over its latest bid to cap the leak.

It was given a 70 per cent chance of success when the risky operation was launched on Wednesday afternoon.


Crackdown: The Obama administration has announced that oil drilling in Alaska will be suspended until 2011 in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster

Clean up: Workers contracted by BP attempt to clear a beach in Port Fourchon of oil

Disaster: A green heron covered in oil is rescued near Venice, Louisiana. The slick has so far affected around 100 miles of the coastline

Health concerns: Four crew members of commercial shipping helping with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have fallen ill

‘The operation is proceeding as we planned it,’ said BP boss Tony Hayward.

Crews were still injecting heavy drilling mud deep into the well at high velocity from two tankers on the surface.
But Admiral Allen said that unless there was an unforeseen last-minute hitch – always possible with such a delicate operation so far below the surface – then the ‘top kill’ strategy was working.

The plan relies on the dense mixture overcoming the pressure of oil and gas rising in the 13,000-ft deep well, basically stuffing the flow back down the hole.

If the plug holds, then the focus will turn to cleaning up the environmental catastrophe that has spilled more than 17 million gallons of crude into the sea off the coast of Louisiana.

US Geological Survey Director Dr Marcia Nutt said that a government task force has estimated that BP’s claim that 210,000 gallons of oil a day had leaked since the oil rig explosion on April 20, which killed eleven workers, was woefully off the mark.
The Exxon Valdez spilled about eleven million gallons into the ocean in Alaska in 1989.

Dr Nutt claimed that a final reckoning could show that the crude pouring from the well before it was capped could eventually tally as much as a million gallons a day.

Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Alabama.

President Obama is set to make his second trip to the disaster area on Friday to see at first hand the ooze that has now reached the coastline in Louisiana after weeks of lurking just offshore.
His visit came a day after Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the US government agency that oversees offshore drilling, was forced to resign amid a flurry of finger-pointing over the lax regulation that may have contributed to the cause of the rig blast.

At a press conference, Mr Obama announced a moratorium on offshore drilling.

He also defended his administration from claims that it hadn’t reacted quickly enough to the environmental nightmare and had allowed BP to control the operation.

Mr Obama said that while BP was responsible for the ‘horrific disaster’, the government has been in charge ‘since day one.’
'This notion, that for the last three or four somehow the federal government is sitting on the sidelines and we've just been letting BP make the decisions, is not true,' he said.
He didn’t comment on the success of the ‘top drill’ attempt, but he said the government had approved the move and aides were closely monitoring its progress. ‘We are exploring any reasonable strategy,’ said Mr Obama.

President Obama said he is suspending operations at 33 oil wells off the US coast until an investigation into the cause of the BP blast is completed.
'I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. It doesn't mean we are not going to make any mistakes, but there shouldn't be any confusion, the federal government is fully engaged.

'I wake up every morning thinking about it and I go to bed at night thinking about it,' he said.

Mr Obama added that even when he was shaving in the morning, his eleven-year-old daughter, Malia, walked into the bathroom and said: 'Have you plugged the hole yet, daddy?' Adding 'I grew up in Hawaii, where the ocean is sacred.'

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Rule change helped BP on Gulf project

Prisoners from the Elayn Hunt Correctional Centre prepare to undertake a training exercise to learn how to cleanse oil from birds affected by the slick

A rule change two years ago by the federal agency that regulates offshore oil rigs allowed BP to avoid filing a plan specifically for handling a major spill from an uncontrolled blowout at its Deepwater Horizon project — exactly the kind of disaster now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil rig operators generally are required to submit a detailed "blowout scenario." But the federal Minerals Management Service issued a notice in 2008 that exempted some drilling projects in the Gulf under certain conditions.

BP met those conditions, according to MMS, and as a result, the oil company had no plan written specifically for the Deepwater Horizon project, an Associated Press review of government and industry documents found.



In a series of interviews, BP spokesman William Salvin insisted the company was nevertheless prepared to handle a blowout at that project because it had a detailed, 582-page regional plan for dealing with a catastrophic spill anywhere in the central Gulf.

"We have a plan that has sufficient detail in it to deal with a blowout," Salvin said.

Still, the lack of a specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon project raises questions about whether the company could have been better prepared to deal with the oil leak, which is still spewing out of control at a rate estimated at more than 200,000 gallons a day.

MMS, which is part of the Interior Department, has long been criticized as too cozy with the industry it regulates.

Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs, Miss., environmental lawyer, said the lack of a blowout scenario "is kind of an outrageous omission, because you're drilling in extremely deep waters, where by definition you're looking for very large reservoirs to justify the cost."

"If the MMS was allowing companies to drill in this ultra-deep situation without a blowout scenario, then it seems clear they weren't doing the job they were tasked with," he said.

The disaster was set in motion when the offshore platform 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico exploded April 20 and sank days later in 5,000 feet of water. Eleven workers were killed in the accident.

AP pressed MMS for an explanation of why the rules were changed, but no official would speak on the record. However, one MMS official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss the matter said the rules were changed because some elements were impractical for some deepwater drilling projects in the Gulf.

But Wiygul said: "The MMS can't change the law just by telling people that they don't have to comply with it. I think it really indicates that somebody at MMS was asleep at the switch on this."

Speaking with reporters after touring a boom operation in Gulf Shores, Ala., Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that he understood that BP was required to file plans for coping with a blowout at the well that failed.

"My understanding is that everything was in its proper place," Salazar said.

However, an AP review of BP's regional oil-spill plan found that it failed to specifically address all of the points required by the MMS in a blowout scenario.

The blowout scenario rules, contained in the Code of Federal Regulations, require rig operators to estimate how much oil could flow from the well per day and the total amount that could leak from a single incident.

They also require such things as an explanation of how a spill would be stopped, the methods that would be used, how long it would take to stop the leak, how long it would take to drill a relief well, and the potential for a well to stop leaking on its own.

The MMS rule change, made in April 2008, says that Gulf rig operators are required to file a blowout scenario only if one of five conditions applies.

For example, an operator must provide a blowout scenario when it proposes to install a "surface facility" in water deeper than 1,312 feet. While Deepwater Horizon was operating almost 5,000 feet below the surface, Salvin said the project did not meet the definition of a surface facility. The MMS official agreed.

"The production platform is what's considered a surface facility," Salvin said. "This was an exploratory well, not a production well."

Brendan Cummings, a Joshua Tree, Calif.-based lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the exploration plan submitted by BP for Deepwater Horizon failed to adequately analyze the project's oil spill risks. Cummings has filed a notice of intent to sue the government over another offshore drilling operation, by Royal Dutch Shell in Alaska.

"The technology used on the now-sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf was supposed to be the most advanced in the world, including various mechanisms to prevent or cap a blowout," Cummings wrote in the filing. "None of these mechanisms worked, and the state-of-the-art technology completely failed to stop the spill."

In its 2009 exploration plan, BP strongly discounted the possibility of a catastrophic accident. Similary, Shell's environmental impact analysis for its Beaufort Sea drilling plan asserts that the possibility of a "large liquid hydrocarbon spill ... is regarded as too remote and speculative to be considered a reasonably foreseeable impacting event."

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not the first time MMS has been criticized as too close to the oil industry.

In 2008, the Interior Department took disciplinary action against eight MMS employees who accepted lavish gifts, partied and — in some cases — had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated. An investigation cited a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" involving employees in the agency's Denver office.

MMS workers were given upgraded ethics training.

£17billion wiped off BP shares as oil slick reaches U.S. coast in 'worst spill in history'... and Obama says they will pay

Ablaze: A fleet of tugs attempt to extinguish the fire on the sinking oil rig Deepwater Horizon, off Louisiana

No way to stop it: Rough winds and waves push against an oil boom set up in a flimsy effort to protect the Louisiana coast yesterday

Snapshot of disaster: Four hundred miles out in space, Nasa's Aqua satellite has taken pictures of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico

Nearly £17 billion pounds have been wiped off BP shares as an oil spill that is threatening to eclipse the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control and started washing ashore along America's Gulf Coast early today.

Fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes in a desperate attempt to stave off an environmental disaster.

BP was also facing financial disaster as the company lost £16.9billion in market value and U.S. President Barack Obama announced they will foot the bill for the clean-up.

The company is currently bleeding £4million a day as the crisis spreads out of control. In the end, the disaster could cost billions.

But the threat to life along the Louisiana coast - and the devastating repercussions for the local economy - threatened to be even greater.

The spill was bigger than imagined - and closer. Five times more oil than BP estimated is gushing into the ocean each day – about 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons.

Fingers of oily sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines. The slick is estimated to be 600 miles in circumference and is set to devastate hundreds of miles of coastline.


Hopeless: A helicopter flies over an oil boom ringing the islands of the Mississippi delta yesterday

Last line of defence: The flimsy oil booms are now all that stands between the birds and other marine life here on Breton Island and along hundreds of miles of the Gulf Coast, and the lethal tar

No way to stop it: Rough winds and waves push against an oil boom set up in a flimsy effort to protect the Louisiana coast yesterday

Time running out: The survival of much wildlife on the coast is at stake as the spill threatens to turn bigger than the Exxon Valdez

Stemming the tide: Waves swamp an oil boom set up off the coast yesterday. The weather has driven the slick onto the shoreline much earlier than anticipated - and if the waves continue to pound the booms they fail to catch much of the oil

Threat: A boat tries to scoop up some of the spill using an oil boom

The DigitalGlobe images clearly show the oil slick floating on the surface of the water as clean-up crews attempt to stem the flow

Lethal: A satellite image taken on Monday by DigitalGlobe shows vessels working to clean up the oil slick

A graphic posted by the U.S. coastguard and the industry task force fighting the slick shows its approximate location

'It is of grave concern,' David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said.
'I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling.'

President Obama has offered military planes, ships and equipment to help BP stem the oil spewing from a well beneath the rig which exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last week.

And the cost of cleaning it up will fall on London-based firm BP, the White House said yesterday.

Barack Obama's spokesman Nick Shapiro said the President has ordered his administration to aggressively confront the oil slick that is spreading over the Gulf of Mexico and oozing ever closer to the coast.
The military is working to determine how its array of aircraft, ships and equipment might be able to assist the clean-up operation.

The oil slick from the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig which exploded and sank a week ago could become America's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast.

The area is one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life.

The oil was thickening in waters south and east of the Mississippi delta about five miles offshore.

The leak from the ocean floor proved to be far bigger than initially reported, contributing to a growing sense among many in Louisiana that the government failed them again, just as it did during Hurricane Katrina.
Mr Obama dispatched cabinet officials to deal with the crisis.

Cade Thomas, a fishing guide in Venice, worried that his livelihood will be destroyed. He said he did not know whether to blame the coastguard, the government or BP.

'They lied to us. They came out and said it was leaking 1,000 barrels when I think they knew it was more. And they weren't pro-active,' he said.

'As soon as it blew up, they should have started wrapping it with booms.'

The US Coast Guard worked with BP to deploy floating booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants, and set controlled fires to burn the oil off the water's surface.

The coastguard urged the company to request more resources from the US Defence Department. A BP executive said the corporation would 'take help from anyone'.
Government officials said the blown-out well 40 miles offshore was spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally estimated - about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons a day.

At that rate, the spill could eclipse the worst oil spill in US history - the 11 million gallons that leaked from the grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 - in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the sea bed.

Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez because Gulf of Mexico wells typically hold many times more oil than a single tanker.

Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP Exploration and Production, had initially disputed the government's larger estimate. But he later acknowledged on NBC's Today show that the leak may be as bad as officials said.

He said there was no way to measure the flow at the sea bed, so estimates have to come from how much oil rises to the surface.

Mike Brewer, 40, who lost his oil spill response company in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago, said he feared the scale of the escaping oil was beyond the capacity of existing resources.
'You're pumping out a massive amount of oil. There is no way to stop it,' he said.

An emergency shrimping season was opened to allow shrimpers to scoop up their catch before it was fouled by oil.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency yesterday so officials could begin preparing for the oil's impact. He said at least 10 wildlife management areas and refuges in his state and neighbouring Mississippi were in the oil plume's path.

The declaration also noted that billions of dollars had been invested in coastal restoration projects that may be at risk and he also asked the government if he could call up 6,000 National Guard troops to help.

The coastguard abandoned a plan on Wednesday to set fire to the leaking oil after sea conditions deteriorated.

The attempt to burn some of the oil came after crews operating submersible robots failed to activate a shut-off device that would halt the flow of oil.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was briefed on the issue, said his spokesman, Captain John Kirby.

But Capt Kirby said the Defence Department had received no request for help, nor was it doing any detailed planning for a mission on the oil spill.

Mr Obama dispatched homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano, interior secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson to help with the spill.

He said the White House would use 'every single available resource' to respond.

The oil has the consistency of thick roofing tar.

A graphic posted by the coastguard and the industry task force fighting the slick showed it covering an area about 100 miles long and 45 miles across at its widest point.

From the air, the thickest parts of the spill resembled rust-coloured tentacles of various thickness.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of petroleum.

More than two dozen vessels moved about in the heart of the slick pulling oil-sopping booms.

BP says work will begin as early as today to drill a relief well to relieve pressure at the blowout site, but that could take months.

Another option is a dome-like device to cover oil rising to the surface and pump it to container vessels, but that would take two weeks to put in place, BP said.

Industry officials say replacing the Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean, would cost up to £460 million. BP has said its costs for containing the spill are running at £4 million a day.

The company said it would spend £66million to drill the relief well.

Obama's "green jobs" guru Jones resigns after uproar-Van Jones resignesigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements

Van Jones resigned his post in the Obama administration in the midst of controversy,an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs,"

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned late Saturday after weeks of pressure from the right over his past activism.

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Saturday. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

He continued: "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."

Van Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones' name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officers had allowed the attacks to occur.

Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war" and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

Jones flatly said in an earlier statement that he did not agree with the petition's stand on the 9/11 attacks and that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever."As for his other comments he made before joining Obama's team, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."His apologies did little to quiet Republican demands that the resign called for Jones to quit, saying in a statement, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate."

Congress to investigate Jones's fitness for his White House position.

Joint chairperson of the council, said in a statement released early Sunday that she accepts Jones resignation and thanked him for his service.

"Over the last six months, he had been a strong voice for creating jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources," she said. "We appreciate his hard work and wish him the best moving forward."

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